tajine

The story of the twelfth-century scholar Umaya b. `Abd al-`Aziz Abu al-Salt al-Dani al-Ishbili starts in al-Andalus but moves eastward, to Fatimid Cairo and Zirid Tunisia. His movement across the Mediterranean illustrates a west-east transmission of knowledge and intellectual culture. A prolific scholar trained in diverse fields, Abu al-Salt's story traces scholarly links between multiple medieval Islamic states. Professor Sumaiya Hamdani joins Graham Cornwell to discuss her work on Abu al-Salt and the historiography of intellectual culture in the medieval Mediterranean.

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The 1870 Crémieux Decree extended French citizenship to most, but not all, of Algeria's Jewish population. The Jews of the M'zab Valley were excluded from this legislation. As Professor Sarah Abrevaya Stein explains in this episode, this was due to a complex web of historical confluences including the chronology of conquest, shifting military and administrative structures for French Algerian rule, and perceptions of Jewish, Arab and Berber indigeneity. This story, while anchored in the local, participates in wider discussions of international Jewish philanthropies, decolonization, citizenship, belonging and marginality amid rapidly shifting global conditions.

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With increased connections between polities on all sides of the Mediterranean during the early modern period, the importance of translators and translation grew to facilitate diplomatic and economic relations. In this episode, Claire Gilbert explores the world of diplomacy in the Western Mediterranean of the sixteenth century the role of translators in this zone of contact.

Nir Shafir is a doctoral candidate at UCLA studying Ottoman intellectual history. (see academia.edu)

Citation: "Between Sultans and Kings: Translation in the Early Modern Mediterranean," Claire Gilbert, Nir Shafir, and Chris Gratien, Ottoman History Podcast, No. 162 (5 July 2014) http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2014/05/translation-mediterranean.html.

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#106 Sources for Early Ottoman History | Christopher Markiewicz

#141 Race, Slavery, and Islamic Law in the Atlantic | Chris Gratien

#077 Did the Ottomans Consider Themselves an Empire? | Einar Wigen

#003 The Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry | Emrah Safa Gürkan

Dario Cabanelas, El morisco granadino Alonso del Castillo, Granada: Patronato de la Alhambra, 1965.

Ellen Friedman, Spanish Captives in North Africa in the Early Modern Age, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.

Mercedes García-Arenal, Ahmad al-Mansur: The Beginnings of Modern Morocco, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009.

Mercedes García-Arenal, Fernando Rodríguez Mediano, and Rachid El Hour, Cartas Marruecas: Documentos de Marruecos en Archivos Españoles (Siglos XVI-XVII), Madrid: CSIC, 2002.

Andrew Hess, The Forgotten Frontier: A History of the Sixteenth-Century Ibero-African Frontier, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.

Nabil Mouline, Le califat imaginaire d'Ahmad al-Mansur: Pouvoir et diplomatie au Maroc au XVIe siècle, Paris: PUF, 2009.

The Ottoman Empire occupies an unusual place among the competing imperial powers of the nineteenth century. On one hand, a weak military position often forced the Ottomans to accept unfavorable economic and political arrangements while playing other empires off each other to maintain autonomy. On the other, we find expansion of state institutions throughout the Ottoman domains and an increased Ottoman presence in many parts of Asia and the Indian Ocean. Many even point to a form of Ottoman colonialism practiced in the frontiers of the empire. In this episode, Mostafa Minawi offers a glimpse at Ottoman practices in the realm of strategic imperial diplomacy within the context of the Scramble for Africa and European competition over influence in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

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Mostafa Minawi is an Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University. (faculty page)

Chris Gratien is a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University researching the social and environmental history of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East. (see academia.edu)

Episode No. 143

Release date: 1 February 2014

Location: Feriköy, Istanbul

Editing and production by Chris Gratien

Citation: "The Ottoman Scramble for Africa," Mostafa Minawi and Chris Gratien, Ottoman History Podcast, No. 143 (1 February 2014)  http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2014/02/ottoman-empire-colonialism-africa.html.

David Levering Lewis, The Race to Fashoda: European Colonialism and African Resistance in the Scramble for Africa (New York: Weidenfeld and

Nicolson, 1987).

Idris Bostan, “The Ottoman Empire and the Congo: the crisis of 1893-95,” in Studies on Ottoman
Diplomatic History, part v, ed. Selim Deringil and Sinan Kuneralp (Istanbul: ISIS, 1990).

Lisa Anderson, The State and Social Reformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1830–1980 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).

Sidqi al-Dajani, Al-Haraka al-Sanusiyya, Nashʾatuha wa Numuwaha fi al-Qarn at-Tasiʿ ʿAshar (Cairo: 1967).

Abdulmola S. el-Horeir, “Social and Economic Transformations in the Libyan Hinterland

During the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century: The Role of Sayyid Ahmad al-Sharif al-Sanusi” (Ph.D. diss, UCLA, 1981).

Claudia Anna Gazzini, “Jihad in Exile: Ahmad al-Sharif al-Sanusi, 1918–1933” (MA

thesis, Princeton University, 2004).

Jonathan Miran, Red Sea Citizens: Cosmopolitan Society and Cultural Change in Massawa (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2009).

The Royal Geographical Society, “Delimitation of British and French Spheres in Central Africa,” The

Geographical Journal 13, no. 5 (May, 1899): 524–25.

This episode is part of our series on Islamic law

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Notions of racial difference played an important role in the Atlantic slave trade and have left a long legacy well after the slave trade was abolished during the nineteenth century. Yet centuries earlier, an Islamic scholar from Timbuktu had formulated an argument against the enslavement of individuals based on race or skin color. In this episode, Chris Gratien discusses the life and writings of Ahmad Baba in Timbuktu and Marrakesh as a captive scholar of Sultan Ahmad al-Mansour. (cross-listed with tajine)

Stream via Soundcloud (US / preferred)

Stream via Hipcast (Turkey / Türkiye)

Chris Gratien is a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University studying the social and environmental history of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East. (see academia.edu)

Episode No. 141

Release date: 18 January 2014

Location: Georgetown University

Editing and production by Chris Gratien

A page of Mi`raj al-Su`ud (Source: LOC)

Gratien, Chris. "Race, Slavery, and Islamic Law in the Early Modern Atlantic." The Journal of North African Studies, Vol. 18, No. 3 (May 2013).

Baba,

Ahmad ibn Ahmad, John O. Hunwick, and Fatima Harrak. Mi`raj al-Su`ud : Ajwibat Ahmad Baba Hawla Al-Istirqaq. [al-Rabat]:

al-Mamlakah al-Maghribiyah, Jami`at Muhammad al-Khamis, Ma`had al-Dirasat

al-Afriqiyah bi-al-Rabat, 2000.

Hunwick, John O. "A New Source for the Biography of

Ahmad Baba Al-Tinbukti (1556-1627)." Bulletin

of the School of Oriental and African Studies 27, no. 3 (1964).

Lovejoy, Paul. "The Context of Enslavement in West

Africa." In Slaves, Subjects, and

Subversives : Blacks in Colonial Latin America, edited by Jane Landers and

Barry Robinson, 9-38. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006.

Mouline, Nabil. Le

Califat Imaginaire D'ahmad Al-Mansur: Pouvoir Et Diplomatie Au Maroc Au Xvie

Siècle. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2009.

Zouber, Mahmoud A. Ahmad

Baba De Tombouctou (1556-1627) : Sa Vie Et Son Oeuvre. Paris: G.-P.

Maisonneuve et Larose, 1977.

Progress, colonialism, nationalism, and the civilizing mission are all concepts associated with the late nineteenth century that were on display at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In this podcast, Alma Heckman discusses the ways in which l'Alliance Israélite Universelle, a Jewish philanthropic organization founded in Paris in 1860, participated in the exposition and in doing so, highlights the ways in which the group's ideology and activities in the realm of education in the Middle East and North Africa contribute to our understanding of these important notions.

Alma Heckman is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at UCLA focusing on communist movements and Jewish politics in Morocco (see departmental page)

Chris Gratien is a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University researching the social environmental history of the Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East (see academia.edu)

Episode No. 126
Release Date: 17 October 2013
Location: Nantes, France
Editing and Production: Chris Gratien
Bibliography courtesy of Alma Heckman

Citation: "Jewish Citizens on Exhibit," Alma Heckman and Chris Gratien, Ottoman History Podcast, No. 126 (October 17, 2010)

http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2010/09/jewish-education-ottoman-empire-alliance-israelite.html.

Cohen, Julia Phillips. Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2013.

Cutler, Irving. The Jews of Chicago: from Shtetl to Suburb. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996.

Fortna, Benjamin. Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Laskier, Michael M. The Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Jewish Communities of Morocco: 1962-1962.  Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.

Malino, Frances. “L'éducation des femmes.” In Histoire de l'Alliance Israélite Universelle de 1860 à Nos Jours, edited by André Kaspi and Valérie Assan, 263-293. Paris: A. Colin, 2010.   

Penslar, Derek. Zionism and Technocracy: The Engineering of Jewish Settlement in Palestine, 1870-1918. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Rodrigue, Aron. French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey, 1860-1925. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. 

Rodrigue, Aron. "La mission éducative (1860-1939).” In Histoire de l'Alliance Israélite Universelle de 1860 à Nos Jours, edited by André Kaspi and Valérie Assan, 227-261. Paris: A. Colin, 2010.   

Şar, Onur. “Alliance Israélite Universelle Schools within the Existing School Frameworks in the Ottoman Empire.” Masters Thesis at Boğaziçi Univeristy 2010. 

Stein, Sarah Abrevaya. “Deaf American Jewish Culture in Historical Perspective.” American Jewish History Vol. 93, No. 3 (September 2009): 277-305.

Resettlement and transfer of populations deemed problematic has long been a strategy employed by states throughout the world from tribal settlement campaigns in the Ottoman Empire and Indian Reservations in the United States to penal colonies in Australia and Siberia. During the twentieth century, "the camp," which represents various types of improvised mass resettlement and centralization of populations, emerged in many forms including refugee camps and the infamous concentration camps of the Second World War. In this episode of the Ottoman History Podcast, Dorothee Kellou discusses regroupement, which was a tactic used by the French military during the Algeria War of Independence (1954-1962) in order to control mountain and rural populations and separate them from FLN combatants. As many as two million Algerians were removed from their villages and settled into camps called regroupment centers, many of which became the sites of permanent settlements.

Dorothée Kellou is a graduate from Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies studying the history and memory of French colonialism in North Africa

Chris Gratien is a PhD candidate studying the history of the modern Middle East at Georgetown University (see academia.edu)

Bourdieu, Pierre ; Abdelmalek, Sayad, 1964. Le Déracinement. La Crise de l'Agriculture Traditionnelle en Algérie. Paris, Edition de Minuit.

Cornaton, Michel, 1998. Les regroupements de la décolonisation en Algérie. L'Harmattan, Paris

Rocard, Michel; Duclert, Vincent, 2003. Rapport sur les camps de regroupement et autres textes sur la guerre d'Algérie, Mille et une nuits, Paris.

Keith Sutton, 1999. "Army Administration Tensions over Algeria's Centres de Regroupement, 1954-1962", British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Nov., 1999): 243-270

Keith Sutton; Richard I. Lawless, "Population Regrouping in Algeria: Traumatic Change and the Rural Settlement Pattern", Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 3, No. 3, Settlement and Conflict in the Mediterranean World (1978): 331-350